Organizations are more reliant on their digital technology than ever before - and the cyber threats they face are also at their highest.
A new report by Databarracks has found over two-thirds (68%) of the IT professionals it surveyed said that they could not survive more than a single day without their IT systems. This is up from 46% in 2017.
This is a problem, as cyberattacks have grown alongside this reliance, to the point where they are now the leading cause of system downtime, according to the respondents.
Dealing with threats
In addition, cyberattacks and internal breaches were the leading causes of data loss (52%), ahead of both software (42%) and hardware (27%) failures. 54% of organizations said that they experienced some form of cyberattack last year.
Ransomware appears to have been the most disruptive form of attack on businesses last year, with 37% of organizations having experienced one, up by 15% from 2022. What's more, only a quarter said that they were "extremely confident" in their ability to respond to them.
However, when it comes to cyberattacks in general, 82% of organizations are confident in their ability to respond effectively. They have been increasing their cybersecurity budgets consistently since 2017; this year, close to half of all companies reported increases in spending in this area.
Keeping vigilance on the supply chain was also a major concern for businesses, with over half reviewing their own for vulnerabilities. Such attacks caused widespread disruption last year, including the infamous breach on the secure file transfer service MOVEit - victims of which are still being brought to light.
Databarracks also notes that more organizations have cyber insurance now and conduct cybersecurity training more frequently than ever before.
